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Entered – Demise of the Gricers (Extended) [Review]

By David Spira on 8 September 2024

Praise the All Train

Location: As, Belgium

Date Played: June 22, 2024

Team size: 2-5; we recommend 2-5

Duration: 200 minutes (extended version)

Price: from €450 per team of 2 to €600 per team of 5 (extended version)

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: All players must be able to climb up and down stairs and ladders repeatedly and crawl repeatedly. You will be moving the whole time. Some amount of cardio fitness is recommended.

Emergency Exit Rating: It was unclear to us if the space was locked.

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

2024 Golden Lock Award Winner

"Built around incredible and unique mechanics, Demise of the Gricers was as creative as it was physical. Entered created an insane and unbelievable world, and then made it real. This was the fastest 4 hours of our lives."

REA Reaction

Demise of the Gricers a massive complex beast of a creation. It's a lot of things, but at the very top of the list is: unfamiliar. I've never seen or heard of anything even remotely like this game. I will do my very best to explore this experience without spoiling anything critical to the enjoyment of the experience.

This was one of my personal favorite experiences to date, but I do not recommend going in fully blind. Demise of the Gricers is not for everyone and it presents a number of very real opportunities for injury. If you do hurt yourself, you will not be the first.

What Even is Demise of the Gricers?

At its core, Demise of the Gricers is a game of exploration in a massive train yard. Parts of it take place outdoors, but most of the game is played inside in a dim, yet dramatically lit space among the trains. And I really do mean among the trains... there is an extraordinary amount of climbing up and down from trains and crawling.

Coupling between a train engine and a car.

To facilitate this, we were given coveralls, kneepads, and helmets. Take the selection of your gear seriously. This equipment is there for your safety and comfort. Make sure that everything fits properly and is comfortable because you'll be wearing it for a long time: 2-4 hours, depending upon the mode that you choose. In my opinion, the 4-hour (extended) version is the only way to play, especially if you're traveling to Belgium like we did.

In addition to the protective equipment, we were given some bespoke tech to both facilitate gameplay and deliver story. I won't say much about this other than Entered made something really cool here.

From a narrative and gameplay standpoint, Demise of the Gricers had us infiltrating a train worshipping cult, hiding amongst their cargo, and looking for information, while also learning about their culture. Gameplay was heavily focused on sneaking and moving with agility. From a story standpoint, I'd be lying to you if I said that I was bought into the fiction going in... "a train worshipping cult? lol." But they made it real. They built their world, stuck to it unflinchingly, and they made be buy-in and care.

There is one thing that Entered treated as a spoiler at the time that we had played, but have since softened their stance on, for the better, because it made the game safer and more enjoyable. That key piece of information is that you cannot have your game ended by being captured (unless it is very late in the game or you are mistreating the performers). I've been told that the rules and introduction have been updated since we played to clarify this for all teams.

What Made Demise of the Gricers Special?

Entered's commitment to the fiction of their world was deeply compelling, enthralling even. The performers put in a lot of world-building work, never passing up an opportunity to add to the fiction.

In addition to the artificial, the realness of the train yard and the trains, as well as the technology that we were augmented with, gave the world a palpable gravitas.

Finally, the uniqueness of Demise of the Gricers' gameplay was truly special. It had us traversing this world, engaging physically to an exhausting yet invigorating degree. The time flew by, and I exerted myself more in this game than in anything in recent memory. Few will accuse me of being in fantastic shape, so the fact the time went by in a flash feels nothing short of miraculous.

What About Demise of the Gricers Needs Improvement?

As much as I loved Demise of the Gricers, for safety, it needed some improvements, in additional to the key "truth in rules" change, which has been recently implemented.

Tutorial Hazards

There is a point early in the game where we experienced a tutorial. The tutorial was great, but the environment that we were in was overtly hazardous, with all sorts of rusty and pointy things. Now, it was easy to avoid these things in this space, as it was light. However, they created a feeling that the rest of the game was this carelessly constructed, which it was not. The danger of this space deeply damaged trust in the rest of the experience.

To add to this, at the conclusion of the tutorial and beginning of the main game, there were a pair of dips in the concrete floor. These need to be filled with something. The floor of the game was level beyond this (not counting the trains), but again this one instance of uneven floors set poor expectations for what was to come.

Glow Tape Maintenance

When we played, it seemed like the glow tape surrounding the game's many large train steps had been renewed. This needs to be consistently checked and refreshed. Not everyone sees well in low light, especially early in the game. Later in the game, our eyes had adjusted and the lighting was sufficient, but that tape was a major lifeline.

Demise of the Gricers is Incredible

I loved Demise of the Gricers, two of my other three teammates were also utterly enchanted by it, and the third one respected the game deeply and also admitted that while it wasn't her game, the time still flew by... which is a feat, if you think about that.

The amount of creativity and deliberate design on display was dumbfounding. Yes, there were spots that need some critical improvement, but I want to take a moment and appreciate the fact that Entered produced an entirely new style of play, created a fully realized game world, and fabricated tech that has never existed before in service of their vision... and they did it all in a historic train building. Demise of the Gricers is a more fully realized experience than 99% of the escape rooms and immersive games that we have ever played. They did this without the benefit of other similar work to take inspiration from. If that isn't special, then I don't know what is.

It is my sincere hope that Entered further iterates on Demise of the Gricers, and that they take the ideas that they have developed here and produce new material... because I had the time of my life in their insane creation. Demise of the Gricers is worth traveling to play, but play it seriously, and don't take a step unless you know where your foot is landing.